Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
Is that even fraud? Plenty of companies have subsidiaries in tax havens that own all their patents and then they pay them for the patents until no taxable income is left outside the tax haven, where the tax on the income is minimal or nonexistent. AFAIK this is public knowledge and not fraud because paying a company abroad for using their patents isn't fraud, it's a legitimate business transaction.

Many tax codes simply don't consider international relations in that sense. Nike uses some loophole where the US law says their subsidiary in the Netherlands has to pay the taxes but the dutch law says the mother corp in the US needs to be taxed. Neither country demands taxes from them as long as all their profit happens in the Netherlands and their HQ is in the US.

A more appropriate question might be why no politicians seriously want to close such loopholes or why there is no international cooperation to make sure all countries get their taxes. Surely Furunculus would be against it, because in "classical liberalism", "libertarianism" or "neoliberalism" the idea that countries compete against one another to grant anyone lower taxes is a great idea and makes everyone more free. Except that Jose the plumber can't just leave Mexico to pay lower taxes in the US, but Antonio the (inherited) billionaire can. That's freedom and equality of opportunity.
The US tax system is a byzantine thing, designed by special interests and tax accounts/attorneys so that there are any number of ways to legally 'game' the system. Trump almost certainly did nothing illegal with his taxes -- but paid fair money to reasonable shysters to insure that he did not have to pay much if anything.

All taxes are paid by individuals. The only thing various tax laws determine is who is responsible for collecting those taxes. The government collects some, but lets businesses collect even more on its behalf.